Memories
by reader93
Summary: Katniss, Peeta, Gale and Haymitch think back and remember certain things in their past. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes angry. General thoughts. Takes place after the first Games, before their return to the District.


Disclaimer: Suzanne Collins owns the world of The Hunger Games and related characters and events.

_These reflections take place after the first Games. Peeta and Katniss are still in the Capitol. Katniss, Peeta, Gale and Haymitch remember the good times and the bad, the happy and the sad. Reviews are appreciated. _

**Katniss – The forest and the Capitol**

The forest is where I truly belong. I feel at home there. The air is cleaner in the forest than it is anywhere else I have been. I feel connected to the earth and with nature and it is the place I feel like I am myself. I don't feel fearful of the other animals. I belong there as much as they do and they know it. I am their equal. They respect me and I respect them.

This is not how I feel in the Capitol. Here, I am restricted, confined by high rise apartments and offices and the streets are constantly busy with cars and there is never a moment of quiet. The air is filthy and I don't know how people can breathe. All the denizens of the Capitol wear outrageous clothing and they care more about their looks than anything else. They spend their time gossiping and spreading rumours and untruths about their so-called friends for their own entertainment. They are so ignorant of what hard work is. They never wonder where their next meal will come from. They are secure in the knowledge that when they push a button, food will appear, or when they push another button they have instant access to hot and cold running water.

This is not normal for me and I feel claustrophobic and ill. Lying in my bed I crave the wide open spaces, the trees, the peaceful silence, a clean wind blowing through my hair, the cool fresh water of a still lake. I miss the feeling of knocking an arrow, the tautness as I pull it back until the twine won't give anymore, slowing my breath and my heartbeat, releasing the arrow in that still moment between two beats, the arrow slicing through the air, the satisfaction of a clean kill when it lands true.

I am glad that the arena was a forest. If I was going to die, at least I would have been surrounded by trees and nature, and I would die feeling close to my father. I didn't die, though, and I get another opportunity to be in my own forest, my playground, my hunting ground, my home. When I die, I want to be buried in the forest next to the stone I laid down in memory of my father at our lake.

**Peeta – Home and the bakery**

I won't lie, I like it here in the Capitol. There is running water and freshly cooked food all the time and the people here are wealthy and love to splash out. They buy extravagantly decorated food without having a reason to or a special occasion to do so, and they don't have to save for months to buy a cake. There is no poverty and people don't die of starvation. I hate seeing the sadness and desperation of the people living in the Seam who don't know where their next meal will come from. Not all the people in the Seam are like Katniss that can hunt for their own food.

But I cant complain about my life in District 12 really. My father is a baker and we are quite well off. The Peacekeepers and the mayor and the other merchants buy from us. They can afford to buy things like bread and cakes. The Mayor especially likes croissants with chocolate in them. The butcher likes fresh rolls with melted cheese on them. The grocer likes cupcakes.

My brothers don't enjoy baking with my father as much as I do. They do it because it guarantees them a trade skill in the future, but I do it because I enjoy baking. My father has been teaching me since I was old enough to mix the ingredients. He would stand me on a stool so that I could see over the counter, and tie an apron around my neck that was far too long and dragged on the floor. I remember one day he arrived home with a small apron just for me. It had cost him three loaves of fresh bread, but I was so happy that he didn't mind. Needless to say I quickly outgrew it, and we used the material as wash cloths.

I remember the smell of the house when my father and I would spend an entire Saturday baking. Our cheeks would be flush from the heat of the fire that, and my father's blue eyes would be bright and sparkle. My mother left us alone on Saturdays, and it would be those days that my father would come alive and be at his happiest. He would tell me stories from his youth that were sometimes joyful and we would laugh until we cried, and sometimes they would be sad and we would weep together. My father was a quiet man generally, and didn't speak much, except the Saturdays that he would spend with me.

He decided that I was passionate about baking enough that I was put in charge of frosting his cakes, the ones that he would put on display in the windows. I remember the first time he showed me how to do it. I had watched him do it hundreds of times before, but it wasn't nearly as easy as it looked. On my very first attempt I ended up with more icing on me than on the cake. I was only ten years old and I was terrified that my father would be angry for wasting, but he was just amused. He showed me how to hold the bag and how to do the piping onto the cake. At first I just did plain frosting, but I quickly got the hang of it and moved onto the more intricate stuff. I will never forget the day my father decided that the cake I had just finished was good enough to be put on display. I had never felt more proud of myself as that day.

My father has taught me many things. He took great care explaining all the different types of breads that the different districts have, the differences in ingredients, the different shapes and why they were shaped like that. He taught me how to make the special bread that couples used in toasting ceremonies, and the meaning behind each ingredient. Those days in the bakery are some that I count as my happiest.

**Gale – Rebellious Intentions**

There are few things that make me feel a passionate anger like the evils of the Capitol. I think I first realised that all the evils of the world were the doings of the Capitol when my father was killed in the mine blast. I realised that it was because our fathers, brothers and friends were forced to work in the mines because we were so poor.

I watched the Games closely that year, taking note of the lavishness of the Capitol, the ridiculous attire that the fools in the Capitol would wear, the money that they would just throw away on nothing, and I realised that they were rich far beyond their needs. I felt it was horribly unfair that they didn't have to lift and finger and yet they were so rich, while we were losing our men when they had to work twelve hours a day, trapped underground, with no guarantee that they would come up to the surface again. Sometimes they didn't.

I kept this anger to myself. It was far too dangerous to discuss it with anyone in the District. There was no knowing who would betray you and tell a Peacekeeper which could result in a public flogging or worse, execution. When I met Katniss in the forest for the first time, I didn't trust her for invading in my territory. But she proved herself to be trustworthy. I figured at first that she didn't tell anyone of my trips to the forest because it would mean that I would tell on her too. It was only when we started sharing knowledge of survival that I knew I could trust her.

I know in my heart that if the opportunity arose for rebellion, I would grab it. Even though that is highly unlikely, it is still a dream that I won't let die. I know that fear is the greatest weapon of control, and that is what the Hunger Games epitomise. The Games are the perfect weapon of the Capitol. It sends a very clear message to us: look what we can do to you. We can take your children and force them to take each other's lives for our own entertainment and there is nothing you can do about it. Imagine what we would do if you tried to rebel?

I just hope that someone someday will begin a rebellion against the Capitol that will be successful. My reasoning is that they can't keep flattening districts like they did to 13, otherwise there will be no more people to rule over and no more slaves to produce the things that the Capitol needs to sustain their lavish lifestyles, and god forbid their lifestyle be interrupted. I know that it is more a matter of when, and not if, there will be a rebellion. I just hope that it is in my lifetime and I get the chance to see a reformed world, where there is freedom to travel between districts, and freedom to choose what job you want, rather than be forced.

**Haymitch – Memories of happier times**

Happiness is not a word I am familiar with anymore. Happiness left my life the moment my name was called at the reaping. The odds were definitely not in my favour, not then, and not ever again after that.

I do have memories of a time when I was happy, though. It was so long ago that it feels like a different lifetime. Those memories feel like they belong to someone else. Sometimes I just get flashes of random things, like my brother's laugh, or the comfort of my mother's voice singing me to sleep, or the safety I felt in my father's arms, or the warmth I felt at my girlfriend's touch.

My father died when my brother was still very young, so he never had any real memories of him, but I remember him. He worked in the mines, as did every other man in the Seam old enough. I was only eight when he was killed when there was a tremor and the roof collapsed on him. Only he and two other men were killed in the rock fall. The other miners worked tirelessly to retrieve the bodies, so at least we had something to bury. We buried him in a simple wooden box near the fence at the edge of the Seam, near the meadow. He liked it in the meadow. My father always hated being trapped underground, but he did it because he loved us and wanted to keep us fed.

I remember sometimes he would come home late at night and my brother and I would be asleep, and he would come in and wake us, just so that he could see the smiles on our faces. My brother would then demand a story, and my father would tell us a fairytale. He had such an imagination, my father, and would weave elaborate tales of a time long ago when there were no districts and Panem was bigger and was called 'America' and everyone called it a free country. My brother and I always laughed at these ridiculous tales. Now that I look back, my father knew more about the real history of Panem then most people. I have, of course, done research, and I was amazed at how accurate some of those 'fairy tales' were.

My brother was quite a bit younger than me, and he grew up far more innocent than me. He had a soft heart, and wouldn't hurt a fly. He did like to wrestle with me sometimes, though, and often I would let him win. When that happened he would saunter around the house so very proud of himself for beating his big brother. At night he would lie next to me in the bed we shared and we would have whispered conversations, and when my mother came to check on us we would pretend to be asleep. She would leave and he would giggle with the thrill of nearly being caught. Then he would plant a kiss on my cheek, whisper that he loves me and fall asleep.

He knew what being chosen in the reaping meant. We had only an hour to say goodbye when I was chosen. He put on a brave face and sat on my lap. He looked me square in the face and with a wobbly bottom lip, he told me I mustn't worry about him or my mother, that he would look after her. He said that I must just focus on winning the games. He said that I must win because even when he looks after my mother, I must come back because he might find it a bit hard to do on his own. It broke my heart that someone so young was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I promised him that I would win and come home and then they would be rich and not have to worry about anything ever again.

My mother was a wonderful woman. She was always smiling and singing, even though living in the Seam was nothing to be joyful about. She stopped singing for a while after my father died, but she put on a brave face for my brother and me, and resumed her singing. She would sing us to sleep every night, even when I was old enough to be reaped. She had a beautiful smile, and she always smelled nice. She took care of herself and washed often. Sometimes, when either one of us was sad, she would hold us down and tickle us until we couldn't breathe and our ribs hurt.

I had had my eye on a girl at school for months, and my mother encouraged me to ask her out. Eventually, a few months before my sixteenth birthday, I built up enough courage to ask her out. I remember forcing myself to walk up to her. she was with a group of her friends. I came up to her, and blushing furiously, I managed to stammer out that I thought she was beautiful. Her friends giggled behind their hands, but she smiled at me and thanked me. She glared at her friends, and took my hand and we walked away from the gaggle of gaping girls. In private she confessed that she liked me too. As they say, the rest is history.

After I refused to be one of their toys to be used and abused, the Capitol poisoned my family and forced me to watch helplessly as they died a slow and painful death. It was the day I arrived home and there was joy in the District. My mother, brother, girlfriend and I were treated to a feast in the Justice building. Our food was brought to the table and we ate greedily. They had never had such a meal in their lives and they ate until they couldn't eat more. We all went back to my new house in the Victor's village, and sat on the couch, enjoying the comfort.

During the evening, they began complaining of sore stomachs. I told them they had eaten too much rich food and they would be fine in the morning. How wrong I was. The three of them got worse very rapidly. They were in such agony they couldn't move. I was in a panic; not knowing what to do to help them, and all I could do was stand there and watch as they succumbed to the poison.

My brother went first being so small and fragile. I cradled his fragile form until convulsions overtook him and he stopped breathing. My girlfriend went next, terror in her face as she realised the inevitable was about to happen. I could only hold her hand as she too convulsed and stopped breathing. I looked to my mother, the last one still alive. She was pale and sweating. She took my hand and managed to whisper that she would look after them for me. She said they would always be there to watch over me. She smiled at me to try and comfort me, until she succumbed to convulsions too. And just like that I lost everything I ever cared about in one foul swoop. When I buried them, I buried what was left of my soul.

I was taken back to the Capitol, and every time I tried to take my own life, the doctors there would bring me back to life. Snow didn't want me to win by taking my own life. He wanted to prove to me that he had control over every aspect of my life, even when I would die. That's when I turned to alcohol. It was the only way I could try and forget what I had done to my family, as well as being a way that I could take my own life if I drank enough.

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